Disaster on the SS Grandcamp (2nd Revision)

[Todd]

Todd, I guess my misunderstanding came from your mention of ammunition and regime change.

Serge, thanks for the encouragement.

Now that two people have suggested starting with stanza 3, I want to attempt another revision, but as a beginner I seriously have no clue how to do that. I can't just delete S1 and S2, right? That means no context at the beginning, unless this changes from a historical narrative to a hypothetical event.

Do you two mean I should move S1 and S2 down to become a flashback or something?

Okay not saying this is the best, but I don't want to push to far most of this should rightly be a personal decision by you. If this were mine as much as I like S1 I might cut it. Capture some (very little) of it's exposition in the title and rework the poem in this order. For your consideration (of course this would require smoothing and editing):

The SS Grandcamp Texas City Disaster

First symptoms were a fever underfoot,
a glowing abscess weeping smoke, and steam
erupting from a broiling hull. Men bathed
the orange embers with a meager stream,

but warping frame and failing mounts amid
the weakened shell caused decks to bulge, then rip.
Once metal ribs were cracked and splintering,
the captain screamed, “All hands abandon—

Unconscious errors spawned a horrid loop-
a high school chemistry mistake writ large,
as heat begetting heat begetting heat
makes sparkling fuses shrink towards their charge.
Then null. Inside the crushing, tearing core,
the blast is noiseless, lightless, sterile, numb;
for all on board that mark the piercing burst
are shattered; rendered earless, eyeless, dumb.

Close by, longshoremen dazzled by the flash
and sudden thunder leap behind their freight
to flee the soaring cloud and fiery hail
of twisted chunks of hull and iron plate.

Above, two circling aircraft’s wings are shorn.
Below, a wall of brine floods church and store.
The anchor, falling many miles away,
plunged into prairie grass, not ocean floor.

A nosy school girl peering out her house
is shotgunned by some unsuspecting panes.
She cringes, shaded by her hands, both cheeks
made bloody brooklets over jagged grains.

Drawn by the roar, a bar-room gawker turns
away from searing heat. Thrown off his feet,
the man is struck behind his head, then turns
around to drunkenly accuse the street.

In time, the fires were doused, and corpses clothed
in oil and silt were piled and tagged. Burnt bits
of flesh and disembodied limbs were blessed,
then placed in caskets dropped in earthen pits.

Now decades out, sole remnants of the day
are found in somber memories, high praise
for men who fought the flames, and doorstops made
from far-flung fragments scattered by the blaze.
~~~

That may not be at all what you're looking for, and that's okay. I just hope it brings some clarity.

Best,

Todd